www.tbyc.org • Edition 5 • April 2011 Spring has finally sprung and we have an abundance of exciting things planned for this year at TBYC! Firstly the Summer Glitter Ball on June 4th has had a huge response, and 170 of you have bought tickets - making it a massive sellout event! So ladies and gentlemen, have your sequins, diamonds and sparkles at the ready for what is guaranteed to be a fantastic night. April will be a busy month, not only for TBYC but also London, with the Royal Wedding on April 29th. We are planning a big Royal Wedding Party on that night with a red, white and blue “Back To The 80's” theme, so don't miss out on one of the biggest parties of the year! Not forgetting the Easter weekend hog roast on Sunday April 24th. Keep your eyes peeled for tickets and ticket discounts for those who buy them for both events. These will be on posters around the club and on the website. Let us know if you have been to any great events elsewhere and would like to see them at TBYC, whether it be a casino night, a cocktail party or beer tasting. Let us know - we would love to have your great ideas! Finally, we are going to start offering a combined ticket booking discount for certain events, like the hog roast and Royal Wedding party, and people who attend the Christmas party will receive a discount on tickets for New Year’s Eve. We hope this will encourage more ticket buying and bookings! Kylie Hello, I would like to introduce myself to you. I am Gary Watty and have been given the wonderful opportunity to take on the kitchen franchise duties at your Yacht Club. APR OCT 24 28 Purple Chilli Catering has been in business for just Saturday Friday over three years supplying buffets, canapés, celebratory meals and dinner parties. I personally APR NOV have over twenty years catering experience as a chef, 29 12 and would be pleased to cater for you in any format. Friday Saturday I am married with three children aged 7,5 and 2 and JUN NOV live locally in Great Wakering. 4 19 Saturday Saturday It would be great if you could come down and try the SEP DEC food, and I am sure you will not be disappointed. 24 10 The menu will stay with all the favourite dishes plus Saturday Saturday daily specials and seasonal meals. OCT DEC 8 31 I am looking forward to meeting you all! Saturday Saturday 22 Many thanks to all those who turned up on the various work parties and gave up your time to enhance our facilities. There is nothing like the passion to get the job done by an army of volunteers. Special thanks to Graham Dare, who virtually painted the committee boat on his own. You may have seen the works have started for the new lift and stairs. This new addition will enhance our club and make the bar more accessible to all. A big thank you to Nick Elmore, Mark Dell and Dominic Speller for their expert advice, time and dedication in bringing this project to reality. Going forward this year, I am looking to put a house committee together and invite those of you that would like to help to give me a call to find out more. We are so lucky to have such a vast range of members from many trades whose knowledge, tools and know-how really makes a difference to our club. Barry Duce, House Rep 33 The Very Beginning of Thorpe Bay Yacht Club Terry Wheeler During the Second World War, my school, Eton House, was evacuated to Banbury in Oxfordshire, so I became a boarder while my parents rented a bungalow at Bourne End, on the Thames in Buckinghamshire. After the war, my school returned to the Borough in 1945 and the early intake of new boys included Kit Hobday. As I was School Captain at the time, it was not unnatural for a degree of rivalry to emerge between us. Pat Linnel (nee Wetton) makes the point in her excellent notes on the origin of the Club that Kit's father and his wife, Pearl, provided a meeting place for us for far too long. Hence the concrete Bosun's Hut was purchased and built. But that was not the beginning: it was on the beach that it all began. If you go down the steps opposite St Augustine's Road to the beach, about eleven beach huts from the end there was one called Ben Hilton, which was owned by my parents. A L-R: Brian Pennington, Terry Wheeler, Audrey Christmas, further five huts along was the Hobday hut and Margaret Taylor (now Porter), Mary Jeffries (?), Fred Harries that is where it all started. Kit ordered a hard chine dinghy from Johnson and Jago which the regular stalwarts included Fred When I returned from National Service was called Texacana: his brother, Terence, had Harries, which was most fortunate as he in early 1953, the following events took a largish dinghy with an outboard motor: and I lived in Thorpe Bay Gardens whereas I place. C.J.Moorhouse, David Cotgrove, had an eight foot dinghy with a bright red lived literally miles away, north of the Fred Harries and myself, and I think, Ron mainsail. This was later replaced by a pre-war railway line. Also, Pat Linnel, who was a Weedon, fastened large baulks of German sixteen foot quarter decked sailing real tom-boy and kept up with us all; timber on top of the rainwater outlet, machine, which had two disadvantages. Firstly, the beautiful Margaret Taylor, whose using an explosive hammer, which fired it leaked like a sieve, hence the fact that the blonde hair would have made Marilyn bolts through the wood and far enough name of Warihiki became Warileaky and Munroe envious; Mary Stewart, a choir into the concrete, to make a slipway. secondly, it was slower than Texacana. girl from St. Augustines Church with a Naturally, we spaced the wood with beautiful voice; Grant Jones, Brian one and a half to two inch gaps to stop Kit's 'gang' included Barry Belton, who was Pennington and John Cotgrove, who the waves forcing up the wood. At the left-back for the Eton House first eleven, and a really knew about boats. We were all same time C.J.Moorhouse was digging lad called Williams whose father either owned, constantly lectured by Kit; who was the foundation trenches for the current or was, Chairman of the Kursaal. He was also always talking about forming a yacht club house with a dinkum digger which artistically inclined and designed the flag for club, and when he came back from belonged to the Kursaal. Our first club the Yacht Club, which still flies proudly. National Service, he did it! house, the Bosun's Hut, was certainly there by the time the slipway was Warileaky broke up in the August gales of 1946, Before the Second World War, the site operational. and with the insurance money we bought an of the present Yacht Club was occupied EOD called Minuet, number 2. Kit then bought by a large building which was painted I then bought my Essex One Design and a Jewel one-design. As Pat Linnel describes, the white and, I believe, was made of sailed at the Essex Yacht Club so I had early keen sailors bought four or five Jewels, clapboard. This was a coastguard little to do with the Thorpe Bay Yacht which were sprightly sixteen foot sail boats. lookout station. During the war the Club until the advent of Hornets. inside was stripped out and a large I had resolved not to list the various support naval gun was installed. I suspect that But that is another story! groups: for fear of leaving someone out, as my the Club bought this site. memory is not perfect these days. But some of Margaret Taylor (now Porter) remembers the first Thorpe Bay Regatta. In a real mixture of craft, that is before several of the first members had the same boat (The Jewel), they had no life jackets, no rescue boat and no buoyancy in their boats, but they were all white at Phil's request. 44 Alan Butler, founding editor of Newsbuoy, writes: As the founding editor of the TBYC newsletter "Newsbuoy", may I congratulate all concerned on the new colour magazine. The newsletter has come a very long way from its origins in 1961 when a four page foolscap paper produced on a Roneo machine, with my wife typing the skins, was mailed to 600/700 members. Members might be interested to learn how the magazine got its name. As editor, I announced a readers' competition. Unfortunately, as most editors of such publications will understand nobody answered or entered, so the editor’s choice became the name which lasted for over 40 years. Best wishes for many years of success to the new magazine! 55 been the installation of a road crossing refuge to the left of Peter Thompson the boat park entrance. This has been kindly overseen by Commodore Mike Woodford of Olympus Keymed for the safety of us all “The Big Picture” is, can you believe, coming up crossing the road. Particular to 50 years old in 2015. State-of- care was taken in its It’s very easy to use our the-art in the 1960s, it’s looking positioning and understanding clubhouse, boatpark, slipway, a little tired now with a history well, hopefully no more the access needed, alterations racecourse, sail training, guard of so many sailing events and slipway slips! Currently the have also been made to the boats etc without ever championships under her long-talked about lift access to cycle path with signage and knowing how it all came control.